In 2009 the Mexican government created the Raúl Rojas González Prize for scientific achievement by Mexican citizens. The first recipient of the prize was Luis Rafael Herrera Estrella, for contributions to plant biotechnology.

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Raúl Rojas was born on June 25th, 1955 in Mexico City to an engineer and a teacher. He attended university at the National Polytechnic Institute in Mexico City, where he majored in Mathematics and Physics. He moved to Germany in 1982 as a doctoral student in economics under the guidance of the political economist Elmar Altvater. The resulting dissertation was published under the title "Die Armut der Nationen - Handbuch zur Schuldenkrise von Argentinien bis Zaire" (The poverty of nations - Handbook of debt crisis from Argentina to Zaire). He became a full professor at University of Halle-Wittenberg in 1994, and later moved to the Free University of Berlin, where he remains today in the Informatics department. His wife, Margarita Esponda Argüero, is a professor in the same department.